Slightly rude question re dresses and budgets

Mine will be 5% tops - but thats prob way below most people. I just really dont want to spend £££ on a dress that will only ever be worn for a few hours!

Thanks.

Have you found a dress yet?

Mine was £600, which I think was 7.5% of my budget (if I can remember how to work out % anyway!). But my mum paid for mine in the end anyway as it made her cry when I put it on!!

My dress and jacket together worked out about 9% of our final spend (that's not including the honeymoon)

Total spend worked out at £13500.

J

Hi

Mine was £600 - got it as a sample dress and it was 50% cheaper than ordering a dress. This is around 4% of my overall budget

Mine was 550 including a 165 pound adult bridesmaid dress, about 5% of my budget

My dress is roughly 4% of our total budget. Budget of £6000 and dress costing £250.

I havent found my dress yet but this is also about how much i want to spend. where did you get yours?

I have spent about 7% of total budget on dress, but that is slowly decreasing as spend elsewhere is rising....

My dress is costing £1150, out of a budget of around £14,500. I think that's around 8%, and more than I intended to spend but I just love it!

Not sure if its frowned upon on here, but getting one made in China by a company called Millybridal. Its a copy of a designer one but with a few changes.

Hi Sarah-Kay,

Dont worry about what someone else paid for their dress! Its your wedding and your dress and you certainly dont have to spend more because someone else did. If you have an idea of what you are looking to spend, I would decide on a budget based on what you can afford or what you are willing to pay and then go look from there.

There are dresses in all price ranges depending on what your looking for. I knew what I wanted my max spend to be and the bridal shop I got my dress in only showed me dresses within my budget. The dress I picked was less than my max anyway which was a bonus!

As far as percentages go, my dress was about 7.5% of our total budget (not including HM) and will prob be about 5.5% including our HM (this doesn't include spending money for HM thou!) x

My last dress was about 12% of my total spend, this time, I hope for it to be about 0% lol, I hope to sell the 'old' dress and buy the new one with the money from it!

Mine was probably approx 8%..of the budge, i had a limit and didnt look at dresses above that, but thats just me...

I think maybe have a max figure in mind then just shop around expensive doesnt always = better iyswim. You may find a dress you love for £50 in a sale! stranger things have happend. happy hunting

Oh don't worry I have no problem telling my mum that I already think I've budgeted enough, in fact I have the opposite proble when it comes to my mother - which is listening to her at all.

Our budget only has very littel wiggle room, we've added up what we think we'll spend on everyhing and luckily enough when we add together what we can afford to contribute and add what our parents have offered they are almost exactly the same number, so I just want to be sure that I have budgeted enough IYSWIM.

It looks as though I'm in the same region as most of you at 5%, and I've budgeted deperately for shoes and some accesories.

Thanks everyone!

I cant see you having any problem finding a dress in your budget then.

Have you seen anything you like yet (online or mags etc)? I loved the dress shopping which I didn't think I would, I hope you have fun! x

I'm looking to spend only about 4% - but that's probably more because our final budget including honeymoon has had to be larger because we're spending a fair bit on our venue, so we're having to cut back on most other areas. Think that's correct, I'm looking to spend a max of £600 on my dress and our total budget is around £18000.

I've seen a few styles I like. I'm not really looking forward to it, but not dreading it. I hope the inner bride in me comes out soon, because she is very relaxed about it all at the moment.

You might like it when you go, I wasn't really looking forward to it, more because I had a feeling I would take ages to find something and I didn't want to look for ages and trail round loads of shops. I actually enjoyed it though, I do think the shop and staff had alot to do with that though, they were really nice and I actually bought my dress from the first shop I went to!

Hopefully the inner bride will make an appearance and you'll enjoy it! ?

I wouldn't worry about how much other people paid, I'd concentrate on how much you want to pay. I originally had decided I wouldnt pay any more than £800. Then I saw the dress online one day at work (while doing research for work!) THe manufacturer said their dresses retailed from £699-£1200. As the dress was so gorgeous I got my mind to thinking it was the highest price, but loved it so much I wanted it anyway! When I got to the shop to try it on it was £965 so that made me happier. I didnt like the service I got at that shop so went somewhere else and it was £699 there!!!

So what I'm saying is work out how much you want to spend and maybe a maximum you would go up to, then go and try some on and remember......have fun!!

I'm crap at %ages. I paid £600 for my dress and we spent about £5-£7k on the wedding.

Mine was about 3-4% of our budget. I found the exact dress I wanted in a sample sale. I didn't want a big dress as it's just not me, and it was a bargain at £250 (half price). We had allowed around double that in our budget - so h2b was pleased. Must remind of that when he starts moaning about money again!

C xx

I have to say i havent really thought of it that way, however i went just looking to a bridal shop sale and i got mine as a one off piece from the sale its a one off designer piece that cost me £699 originally £1250. I think the dress is the most important part of the day and you should pay as much as you want for it. You will just know when you find the right one, i did! Good luck xxx?

I spent £500 plus £75 for alterations - don't forget to figure this into your spending as some places charge a minimum of £200 for alterations......

Anyway I orginally budgeted about 7.5% - around £1000 - although this was only if it was an amazing dress.

I would stick with the figure you've got - you can find something in almost any budget (Debenhams etc do dresses too) and don't feel pressured into spending more than you want. Like Zippy did, shop around + do your research, you'd be surprised in the variation in prices on the same dress.

Also bear in mind that the bigger + more detailed the dress (beading, layers, embroidery etc) the more expensive it can be.

I got mine in Monsoon and only paid £200 for it.

I just wasn't prepared to spend hundreds and also didn't really like the traditional dresses, so that suited me fine.

What I would say is that everyone is different, and it really doesn't matter what others are paying for dresses. But if you have a budget that you must stick to, then I wouldn't even bother trying on more expensive dresses as if you love on of them and can't afford it, it would be heart-breaking!

Ali x

I have no idea how much we actually spent on the wedding, but I didn't want to spend any more than £600 on my dress. It was a self imposed budget as any more than that I felt uncomfortable with.

As it was, I was so determined not to spend more that before visiting any shops I rang and asked if they had dresses within my budget and specifically chose to visit shops that had lots around that price range. I didn't struggle to find a dress at all.

See all the ones I'm liking have quite a bit of detail... Oh well, will just have to see how it goes.

? everyone, it seems like I'm about average spend, which means I shouldn't be massively dissappointed when I go dress shopping which is what I was worried about.

SK x

Mine is quite big and has a lot of detail and was only £699, see the flash your dress thread in about five mins

Excluding honeymoon my wedding is roughly £6000 and my dress was £1000 + about £300 for alternations so wow percentage wise my dress was a lot but the rest of the wedding isn't as expensive as that so it has balanced out ok.

My dress was just over £1k (not including alterations which were about £100) so about 5% of our budget (not including honeymoon). I had a limit of £1000 and only went over it by £45 - and my dress came with a veil too so actually I saved money! ?

Dress was £1800 but I paid £900 inc alterations as I bought the sample (apparently only one person had tried it on and she thought it was because the nasty jacket it came with put people off). Wedding was about £11,500 exc honeymoon (approx £20,000 inc honeymoon).

Hi Sarah-Kay

Mine is roughly 10% of my wedding budget. I have reduced it due to buying a house as well as getting married this year, but still found the dress of my dreams last week after months of searching. Don't be fooled into thinking you need to pay squillions for a nice dress. You don't! I have also bought a 'party' style wedding dress on ebay for the evening at approx 15% of the shop cost. I would say go with your original budget and see what you get for your money.... xx